Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

To come back to the new building there, the HSE is talking about closing St. Brigid's because of flooding. It will tell you the geniuses we have at the top of the HSE that they would come in and spend, I think, €2.7 million to build a state-of-the-art facility on a flood plain and start throwing out those excuses. We have seen in Cashel - Deputy McGrath was at the meeting on that - that St. Patrick's was to be built and now the HSE has decided the site is not big enough so the facility is moving. There is 2.5 acres out the back of that hospital. I do not know what size of a unit is being built, whether it has ten beds or 60 beds, but there is loads of room there. The HSE is closing these facilities down bit by bit. We were at a meeting with the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, in Clonmel at which St. Brigid's was discussed. An admission was made that 350 beds were not going to be lost at that stage. I believe this is the reason all the smaller hospitals are being targeted bit by bit.

As regards the provision of services in the wider Cork area, where there appears to be a lack of consistency in the services provided, what would Ms Curtis like to see now in the east Cork area?